


Preordained

by FortuneSurfer



Category: Per qualche dollaro in più | For a Few Dollars More (1965)
Genre: Bounty Hunters, Canon-Typical Behavior, Canon-Typical Violence, Drinking, Fix-It, Gentle Sex, In Character, M/M, Minor Character Death, Post-Canon, Post-Canon Fix-It, Smoking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-01
Updated: 2020-08-01
Packaged: 2021-03-04 18:54:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,682
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25431205
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FortuneSurfer/pseuds/FortuneSurfer
Summary: "To think that I refused you a partnership... I really must’ve been not thinking straight."“Except, you didn’t refuse it, old man. If memory serves, you even left yourself a crack in the door. And now I’m forcing my boot in it.”
Relationships: "Manco" | The Man with No Name/Douglas Mortimer
Comments: 8
Kudos: 27





	Preordained

**Author's Note:**

> This is not beta'd, but I'm doing my best.
> 
> I love feedback and talking to fellow fans, so, I would love to learn about your impressions! <3

Quick steps in the hallway.

They belong to a man who is running to the stairs; he is trying to hold up his open trousers with his one hand. He is followed by a black silhouette at a calm pace.

The criminal looks back at him in superstitious horror and almost falls off the stairs because of that; but he manages to grab the banister in the last moment and rushes downwards leaping over the steps.

As soon as he reaches the first floor, a shot is fired. The criminal gasps and lets go of his trousers. He falls to the ground with a half-spin.

Colonel Douglas Mortimer draws his gun lightning fast – the shot wasn’t his. His eyes are on the doorway through which someone else’s bullet got his victim, and he lets whoever it belonged to know:

“I’ve been tracking this man for a week because he was worth twice more alive. You ought to compensate me the difference.”

He doesn’t get a response right away. First, his invisible competitor unhurriedly approaches the doorway, his steps accentuated by the jingling of his spurs. Then, Mortimer hears him light a match.

“I don’t think so. It was me who shot him,” says he arrogantly. “By the rules of our business, that means I get the reward for him. But I’ll leave it to you.” Mortimer lowers his gun even before his old friend steps out of the hall. Manco leans against the doorway with his elbow and blows out smoke. “On the occasion of our meeting,” concludes he with a smile that raises the tip of his cigarillo.

Mortimer warmly smiles in return.

“In that case, I’ll pay for the drinks.”

Manco touches the brim of his hat in a greeting gesture.

“Old man.”

“Good to see you, boy.”

Mortimer comes down the stairs to shake Manco’s hand but is interrupted by a nervous gasp from the side. It turns out to be the hotel owner, who is holding a gun in front of him; it is shaking quite badly, though.

He looks at the prostrated dead body of the wanted criminal between them and then raises his eyes to look at them.

“It’s all right,” comforts him Mortimer. “He was a bad man.”

— — —

Their gun belts are lying on a table together with their hats – this is what trust and comfort between equals looks like in these parts.

Mortimer walks past that table to the lit, cozy fireplace (December has come already) where Manco has stretched his long legs. Mortimer gives him his glass – Manco takes it with his hand with no leather handcuff on, and their fingers brush – and Mortimer takes a seat in the other chair.

He lights his pipe and turns to Manco, studying his face. He looks for any changes that have manifested themselves in him since their last encounter. And also quietly enjoys how the fire in the fireplace warmly illuminates Manco’s features.

“Did you find a place for yourself to settle down?” Manco, who has removed the cigarillo from his mouth to takes a sip, makes an ambiguous sound. Mortimer raises an eyebrow and reminds him: “It’s been four months since you collected the reward for Indio and his band.”

“Yeah. But…” starts Manco and frowns, “it turns out to invest money is almost as difficult as to earn it… And I don’t want to spend it on a farm somewhere only to find it flooded in spring. So my searching continues.”

Mortimer scoffs, unsurprised. There was a part of him that hoped for the opposite, but his intuition had always been that neither the reward for Indio’s band, nor all the stolen money from the bank of El Passo would actually suffice to take Manco out of the game for long. The boy is too venturesome and too good at what he does – you don’t throw away a mindset like that. He will have to go on until he loses his interest or until something will make him reconsider his priorities.

Mortimer takes his pipe out of his mouth and smirks, pointing with it at Manco.

“Careful, boy, you’re losing your recklessness.”

“Probably will start to turn grey like you soon.”

Manco makes a pause, which is filled with the sounds of Mortimer’s fireplace, before he carefully asks him: “And you, old man? Tell me what did you do after getting your revenge. Returned to the tar heel state?”

Mortimer is amused by the fact that he uses the nickname of his home state; he did indeed return to Carolina to visit the grave of Kaitlynn. Because he didn’t know where else to go then.

“Traveled, mostly,” he replies, truthfully and vaguely. “It’s a shame to admit, but it took me quite some time to break the habit of looking for the tracks of Indio. Or thinking about the bastard.”

“Well, it’s what you’d expect after years of searching for him.”

And sometimes, Mortimer doesn’t add, almost too much to bear.

It was his last mission, and he was at a loss after finishing it, terribly enough to deliberate the unforgiveable. Until Kaitlynn, young, beautiful, and as always bringing freshness into his soul like a warm spring day, visited him in his dream. She sat down on his bed and took his hands into hers. She didn’t say anything, no, but her presence and her stern but loving gaze told him to go on and keep looking. For something or somebody.

Mortimer remembers the feeling of hope that his sister’s visit had left him with and compares it to the way his heart sentimentally skipped a beat when he saw Manco again earlier this day, — as if he had been waiting for that moment all this time since their last meeting.

Mortimer blows out warm aromatic smoke through his nose and says:

“I’m glad that our paths crossed again. A superstitious man could call it fate.” He accompanies his words with a comradely smile.

Manco moves the cigarillo in his mouth, visibly dissenting. “No offense, but I don‘t believe in fate. I make my own luck.”

It reminds Mortimer of something and he leans a little bit to the other’s side to give him a meaningful and impish look.

“And yet.”

He raises from his chair in order to, under Manco’s eyes, take a thin piece of paper out of the pocket of his coat hanging by the door. He returns to Manco with it and gives the paper to him, holding his pipe and watching his reaction, intrigued.

“What’s that?”

“Today, when I picked up my clothes from the Chinese laundry, I was offered a fortune cookie. And here’s what it had to say.”

Manco opens the paper and squints at it, reading the message it contains out loud.

“ _Your bad luck will bring you good luck. Do not miss out on it_ … Nebulous.”

“I thought so to. But it rings familiar to me now.”

Manco leaves his chair, too, and returns the paper back to him, pressing it between the fingers of the hand he holds his empty glass with. He nods to Mortimer’s question whether he’d like more whiskey, and while Mortimer opens the bottle once again, Manco approaches the only window in the room. He looks at the darkening city outside and says, pensively:

“I don’t like the idea that someone drives me like cattle. I make my own decisions. And to tell you the truth, old man, our encounter today wasn’t entirely incidental.” Mortimer turns to him in astonishment, and Manco, looking at him over his shoulder, adds with a grin: “I was looking for you.”

Mortimer instantly imagines the young bounty hunter pointing his pistol at some unfortunate town folks that had seen him from the corner of their eyes and who were too afraid to talk until Manco set his trigger, which in turn brought to them the freeing realization: the bullet that is far away is less intimidating than the one that is waiting for you in the barrel this instant.

Mortimer blinks and frowns, tense now.

“Why?”

And Manco, who is collected all of a sudden, explains:

“Your part of the reward is still waiting for you. I figured you might change your opinion on it when the dust settles and you’ll be feeling practical again. You’re still chasing criminals, so, I take it, I wasn’t mistaken.”

Mortimer doesn’t reply for some time, deeply astonished by the generosity of the other’s gesture that is uncharacteristic for the people of their profession. But also by the accurateness of Manco’s assessment and most of all by the fact that the boy wants to have him by his side. Again.

…And that when Mortimer thought he would be a bad influence that would hinder him from having a peaceful life he envisioned. And also, that it would be better to gently push him away than to become too attached and get left behind. Or worse, let him near him only to lose him in a cruel, unnatural way.

Mortimer sees that Manco’s face becomes harder, that he is squinting harder, too, and that there is open sadness, even hurt in his eyes, and only then is he aware that he still hasn’t told him anything and is slightly shaking his head.

With difficulty, Mortimer says: “To think that I refused you a partnership... I really must’ve been not thinking straight.” He tries to communicate what a regret it is with his tone.

Having heard him and understood what he’s saying, Manco exhales all his physical tension and replies freshly, with a grateful, boyish smile in his eyes: “Except, you didn’t refuse it, old man. If memory serves, you even left yourself a crack in the door. And now I’m forcing my boot in it.” A smile makes the crow’s feet around his eyes more pronounced.

Mortimer chuckles to himself and approaches Manco – he gives him his glass, and agrees, refilling his own: “Then, I guess I could try to teach you a trick or two.”

“Yeah. That would be real nice,” says Manco a little quieter than before. And his next words sound soft: “To the continued partnership?”

“To the partnership.”

They clink their glasses.

In the few seconds that follow right after, Mortimer finds himself shy, even a bit embarrassed. He is a reserved man who isn’t used to the comfort that his partner is providing him with just by drinking with him in his hotel room, emanating reliability, and calmness, and good will, which Mortimer still doesn’t understand. Just like he didn’t expect help to come in the very last moment, when he stood in front of Indio then, accepting his end. Or even less so – tactful support from a young colleague who somewhere along the way became a good friend, the only friend he’s had in years.

A feeling of appreciation and affection arises in Mortimer. He thought of the boy very frequently during the last months, not ready to let go of his image even when he convinced himself that they would never see each other again in this life. But even then he wanted to believe that Manco was out there and was doing well.

He is going to see to that personally now.

Mortimer asks: “When do we start?”

Manco wrinkles his forehead.

“Is there a reason not to start right now?”

He nods to his rucksack, sitting at the floor by the room’s entrance, with the implication that he has all his working materials with him.

“No.” Mortimer smiles. “No reason at all.”

— — —

The empty bottle is forgotten on the table, and smoke floats in the room’s air.

They discuss plans, supplement each other’s information by comparing what is written in Mortimer’s journal to what Manco has found out through his personal inquiries. Coincidentally, their next targets will be two bandits who often work together: Jim Kidd and Dick Moons. Several armed robberies of post offices, the theft of sacred objects, counterfeiting, all amount to the six-thousand dollars reward the state is willing to give for their heads.

Moons has been sighted in Bandera, Texas, not too long ago, and this is where they’ll go to after they visit a few other places here in New Mexico to take care of some smaller matters. They check the map, plan their route.

“It’s nice to work with a professional,” says Manco after a while.

“I could say the same,” replies Mortimer.

He glances at the longcase clock quietly swinging its pendulum in the corner. The hour is late, but Manco doesn’t seem to have any intention of leaving yet. And Mortimer… Mortimer, who strangely feels at home for the first time in a very long time, doesn’t want to remind him.

Later, they discuss the purchase of food and ammunition for the nearest future, and Manco decides to inspect Mortimer’s arsenal blanket hanging on the wall.

“A new one, huh?”

“Correct.”

Mortimer is ready to describe his latest acquisition if Manco is going to ask him, but the other prefers to explore everything on his own, and, true to his shameless curiosity of a cat, which amuses Mortimer a great deal, is already reaching for the lovingly oiled rifle.

At the last second, though, Manco half-turns to him and asks for permission: “May I?”

Mortimer gives him permission, not without interest noting to himself his demonstration of decorum. He is certain that not many people’s possessions – or their owners for that matter – have received such a thoughtful treatment from his friend. And the exclusivity of treatment is mutual, of course: Mortimer can’t picture himself allowing anybody else to touch his brand new carbine or any of his weapons. For a long time, they have been more personally connected to him than any living being other than his horse.

Maybe for too long, and maybe it’s starting to change, Mortimer muses, while Manco examines his Colt, its metal glittering nobly in the light. Mortimer carefully watches him from the distance. Not because he doesn’t trust Manco to treat his rifle with respect but because what he sees pleases him aesthetically. It’s not the first time that he notices that the boy has elegantly formed hands and long fingers. Mortimer imagines that his palms must be warm. After all, such a brave and vivid personality must have a strong, hot heart.

“Sweet,” says Manco finally, his curiosity satisfied. “Now, that’s much better than your funny contraption.”

Mortimer scoffs, perfectly aware that he’s being provoked for fun.

“Will you return the favor?”

He approaches the table with Manco’s gun belt still on it, and after his intention is approved by the owner, carefully takes the pistol with a silver rattlesnake grip out of its holster.

“Our acquaintance was very fleeting,” he comments, meaning the duel with Indio.

Manco grins.

“You got to know the most important thing about each other, didn’t you?”

Mortimer doesn’t respond, assessing his impression from having that pistol in his hand again and reliving how it gave him his long-sought feeling of completion. Mortimer inspects it and says with the authority of somebody who is uniquely knowledgeable about weapons:

“That’s a beautiful gun.” _For a beautiful man_ , he thinks to himself. “And it suits you well.”

Mortimer hears that Manco, who put the rifle back into its place, is approaching him. His quietly jingling steps on the parquet are complemented by his voice: “Looked good on you, too.” Manco says it evenly, but his intonation seemingly suggests an invitation for Mortimer to try on his belt again.

Mortimer returns the pistol back into its holster. He’s had too much whiskey, and he’s hearing things the way he wants to hear them, although he shouldn’t. It’s dangerous.

“Many men carry a gun, but not many know how to use it,” Manco continues, and Mortimer agrees with him even without knowing where this line of thought is going. Manco hesitates and then adds with restrained but very palpable admiration: “Never seen anybody move like you.”

Naturally, appreciation from an equal and specifically from Manco caresses his ears. Mortimer smiles and replies with irony: “The army and almost a decade of bounty hunting must’ve been conducive to it. But I’m glad that you’ve noticed.”

He returns Manco’s gun belt on the table and turns around, thinking about asking Manco where he learned to shoot. Manco catches his hand with his. Left one.

There is no tight grip, he’s just holding Mortimer’s hand.

Mortimer blinks a couple of times. Then looks him in the face, waiting for some kind of explanation or continuation. Manco looks back at him with hard expression in his eyes, which makes Mortimer tense instinctively. That’s how the boy looked at him when he assessed him before he decided to assail his boot.

Manco lowers his eyes to their hands and suddenly gives Mortimer’s wrist a light stroke with his two fingers. Mortimer’s heart jumps a little in his chest. It can’t be. He must be dreaming with his eyes open.

But the fabric under his hand is distinctly real when after a couple of careful strokes his palm is placed onto the front of Manco’s pants, and Manco asks him, his voice expressionless: “And what are your thoughts on this model?”

Mortimer raises his eyes to Manco’s face, but the other keeps his head low and his gaze fixed on their hands. His face bears the expression of strange resignation that’s close to meekness, like he’s already accepted the hit in his face that he thinks he’s about to get for his impertinence. It’s that and not the clumsy directness of his gesture that really surprises Mortimer.

He realizes that the boy is blunt because he’s afraid to be rejected. (The irony of their likeness appears to Mortimer almost dumbfounding in that moment.) And yet he can’t help being honest with him.

Mortimer squints and quietly replies: “I’ll need to examine it properly to make a verdict.”

He backs up his words with soft, massaging movement of his fingers where their presence has been requested, and Manco exhales loudly and even slouches so that it almost levels their height difference. Mortimer uses how relaxed he is and smoothly, like he’s performing a dance move, turns him by his waist to position him against the table and give himself more space.

Moreover, now Manco is facing the light source, and all the details of his face are exposed to Mortimer. He notices that his frown line is still here. Then, they’re both equally nervous.

Manco looks at him concentrated and confused, badly trying to mask the latter with tenseness in his face muscles.

“Don’t be shy,” encourages him Mortimer.

Manco makes a face and snorts dismissively but he looks less cocky than usually doing that. Mortimer can’t suppress a smile of pleasure because it doesn’t escape him that the other also blushes.

“What the hell are you talking about, old man.”

After that, Manco begins to untie the knot of his tie and throws the end of it on Mortimer’s shoulder. Mortimer calmly helps him unbutton his vest and his shirt and then takes care of Manco’s belt. He pulls it out and lets it fall to the floor when Manco imponderably strokes his chest with his fingertips. Mortimer hums in approval and slows down his reciprocal caress.

When Manco’s fingers find an old scar below his collarbone, the touch lingers. Seeing disapproval, even territoriality in the features of the other, Mortimer informs him: “The other had it much worse.”

“I should hope so,“ grumbles Manco, and at first Mortimer is certain that it’s the cockiness of youth that speaks in him, but then he realizes that he felt something similar when he saw Manco beaten up by Indio’s gang.

He distracts them both by continuing his manipulations – and their efficiency is confirmed by the growing hardness under his hand. Manco gets bolder, too, and is already touching his neck and frankly catches Mortimer off guard by stroking his jaw with his right hand, which is reserved only for the use of his gun. Mortimer gets goose bumps thinking that that same hand is giving him tenderness now.

Then, the hand stops.

“Wait,” stops him Manco.

“What?”

“Isn’t it… frowned upon?”

Mortimer looks over his shoulder, aware that Manco has noticed the Bible that he put on the nightstand when he arrived this morning and forgot to put it away. It’s clear that Manco himself isn’t god-fearing, so he must be worrying about making him compromise his beliefs now. Mortimer is exceedingly touched.

“Boy,” says he with warm amusement and gently strokes Manco’s cheekbone, “I’ve sent so many ugly souls to where they belong somebody up there should keep an eye closed for me.”

Manco lowers his head and says through his teeth, to the side:

“Well, then, I gotta say. There is a fly on it, dammit.”

Mortimer grins: “Naturally. My bad,” and preparatorily spits into his hand.

But despite all his self-control, Mortimer’s ability to flirt and play is no longer there when he catches the vulnerable sight of Manco’s hairline, and skin meets skin in a confident finger-to-finger grip.

He doesn’t want to recall how long it has been since he got close with somebody for the last time – before he left the army, there’s no doubt about that. And even though that particular skill of his must’ve become rusty without any practice with a partner, he wouldn’t be able to tell it by looking at Manco’s welcoming reaction.

In fact, it is so emotionally sating for him, that when Manco’s hand finds his groin, Mortimer’s own weak reaction apparently confuses his partner.

“Don’t you need help?” asks Manco in disbelief.

It’d be absurd to deny the urgency behind what is meaningfully protruding in the hand of the other, and so Mortimer agrees: “Yup.” But goes on to clarify: “But I’d prefer to concentrate on you for a moment,” as a vivid impression for the boy is his highest priority right now.

“Then, it's true what they say… That sharpshooters can only handle one thing at a time,” says Manco and grins.

In addition to that, he strokes Mortimer’s ear with a pleasant rustle and rubs his ear lobe between his fingers. Mortimer closes his eyes, enjoying the sensations. It takes him some time to find the desire to make a correction: “You’re forgetting that we also have the reputation of being the best at what we do.” He illustrates his point by purposefully rubbing the head of Manco’s cock so as to give his delicate foreskin the most pleasant kind of stimulation.

Manco lets out a shaking sigh and agrees: “I can see where it might come from.”

Mortimer very thoroughly enjoys talking to him at such a distance that is intimate in every way, but as his hand’s movements speed up and become less gliding or wrapping than assertive the possibility of having a conversation gradually escapes both their minds.

Manco visibly loses his focus, stroking Mortimer’s face slower and slower; and Mortimer watches him, trying to remember every little aspect of his face.

The dramatic play of light and shadow on his skin, rough from the wind and the sun.

The gentle trembling of his eyelashes, fluffy like those of a young woman.

The way Manco raises the left corner of his upper lip, baring his teeth a little, after what must be an especially pleasant sequence of movements.

_I’ve never seen anybody like you._

Manco is breathing through his half-open mouth and Mortimer badly wants to kiss this mouth but doesn’t, thinking that to do it now, while the other won’t be able to refuse him that liberty would mean to ambush him. Instead, Mortimer turns his head to take the knuckle of Manco’s finger that is resting on his cheek into his lips and gives it a tender little bite. Manco opens his eyes wide and looks at him, positively misty-eyed. Mortimer wants to see him like this many, many times more.

The ideal trance of their locked gazes results into the bucking movements of Manco’s hips that shake the table behind him. Manco hoarsely warns Mortimer: “Colonel.”

“I got you, boy.”

Moved by something like an inspiration, Mortimer lowers Manco’s neckerchief a little bit and kisses the scar on his neck that was left by his own bullet four months ago. And it seems to him that it’s this gesture of affection that Manco can’t handle when he shudders with a sound that’s half-moan and half-grunt.

…Can it be that he eyed the scar every time he saw himself in a mirror after a bath or when he was shaving, touching the mark to remind himself that his friend colonel had been real? Mortimer can imagine it just because he himself didn’t have any such souvenir and regretted it a lot.

Captivatingly real Manco in front of him – the smell of his sweat and tobacco, his hot skin, his ragged breathing pattern that Mortimer feels with his whole body, and even the viscosity of his seed that’s covering his hand – is a compensation for the months of Mortimer’s loneliness that oftentimes felt heavy like a tombstone.

Mortimer takes his gun cleaning rag that is lying nearby to wipe his hands. He’ll be using another one.

Manco intently watches him, making himself respectable again. When he finally catches his breath, he makes Mortimer huff out a laugh by pointedly saying a rather piquant: “ _Bravo._ ”

Mortimer doesn’t have the time to respond, though; the next moment Manco closes the distance between them and takes him by his shoulders. He licks his lips and says: “Now is my turn.”

The way he sounds and the way he looks down at him with earnestness, and warmth, and deep fascination makes Mortimer feel weak in his knees. And it’s very fitting given how he quickly finds out that Manco’s plan was to move them to Mortimer’s bed. Under the present circumstances, Mortimer agrees to overlook the fact that he prefers to sleep on clean sheets.

He decides that he could agree to many things on the condition that the boy would be half-leaning over him and half-lying on top of him like he is now.

Mortimer is so mesmerized by their new position that he simply watches Manco undo his belt with one hand as he leans on the elbow of the other hand; Manco isn’t patient enough to get rid of the clothing item altogether and just puts his hand down his trousers as soon as he can – Mortimer breathes in sharply.

They look at each other. Then, Manco closes his eyes and slowly, deliberately lowers himself to kiss him on the mouth. Mortimer doesn’t try to suppress a moan. Soon enough, he buries his fingers in Manco’s mane of soft hair, while Manco himself starts to lose the rhythm that he just established, but Mortimer helps him re-invent it, covering his hand with his own hand to guide him.

Their kiss – undoubtedly the most pleasant experience that Mortimer has ever shared with anybody – lasts and lasts, until Mortimer throws his head back, deafened by his own heartbeat. Then, Manco rubs his stubbled cheek against his in a gesture that’s so sincerely loyal that it gives Mortimer a heartache.

In that moment, Mortimer knows that everything is preordained. He will follow the boy. He will follow him as long as he will allow him to follow him. The certainty feels cathartic; it brings him very close to his relief and urges him to call the other by his name, but all the knowledge he has amounts to:

“Manco… My wonderful boy.” The words turn out to be enough to make Manco respond with a low moan and press their foreheads together – until they manage to make Mortimer finish.

Mortimer remembers that episode in the heavy bliss that comes later, when Manco is looking at him, pondering something. Somehow, Mortimer is sure that the boy is thinking that there might be a day when he’ll tell him his name.

If it will still have any relevance.


End file.
